There’s one grammatical norm that just hardly ever fits into the brain accustomed to thinking in Russian. Even after living here for two years. It’s the intuitively correct placement of articles. The rule is simple, but the brain still doesn’t apply it unconsciously; instead, it stumbles for a few milliseconds and quite often inserts the wrong one, because the decision must be made in real time. Specifically, the problem is with non-countable nouns. For instance, if you want to say Officials indicated that (the?) evidence obtained through undercover operations… there’s no need for an article (actually). Or in such a context – “hydrogen is (an article?) dangerous gas” you kind of understand that an article is needed, but then again, you can’t count gas. But when it comes to saying I need (a?) permission, it feels right to say “Ineedpermission”, but out pops “IneedApermission” because there was no time to think.
By the way, watch the first episode of the fourth season of Black Mirror. “I was just gonna fix a coffee”, “wide berth”, “don’t do her head in” and a bunch of other expressions that were absolutely new to me. But the episode itself is wonderful. And also check out Hang the DJ, very much so.
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 